Winchester '73 (The Nitrate Picture Show)

Winchester '73. James Stewart.

Anthony Mann, US 1950
Print source: Library of Congress, Culpeper, VA
Running time: 93 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 5 May 2018

NPS: "About the print

This print displays light, recurrent vertical base scratching, but it does not detract from the lovely Arizona landscape. There is some warpage, which causes the print to wander at times in the film path and can affect focus, making the projectionists’ job even more difficult. Shrinkage: 0.65%

About the film

“The rifle Winchester ’73 is a beauty, and so is the picture about it. I use the word, however, in admiration of the picture’s cinematic feel and not of the story it tells and the emotions it engenders, which are ugly. For the bad men of this movie at Ritz, United Artists, Vogue, Culver and Studio City theaters are really evil men, and even its hero, James Stewart, is spurred by an old blood feud to kill. The technique employed by Stuart N. Lake, author, Robert L. Richards and Borden Chase, scenarists, and Anthony Mann, director, has the same lean-ribbed, debunking quality as the recent Gunfighter. The men in Winchester ’73 seem to be the product of the hard land and a parlous time; everything conspires against their chances for survival, and they are ringed by hostile forces, tangible and intangible.”
– Philip K. Scheuer, Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1950

“The famous Winchester repeating rifle, ‘the gun that won the West,’ is celebrated in a lively and noisy western at the Paramount. Winchester ’73 has the redoubtable James Stewart wearing a dirty ten gallon hat and six-shooters and avenging his father’s death back in the 1870s. It also has enough action to carry several horse operas and still have some to spare. There is a rifle match in Dodge City, followed by a successful repulse of Sioux Indians on the warpath just after Custer’s last stand. Stage coach holdups and killings in cold blood punctuate the proceedings. All in all, it is quite a melodrama of frontier days. . . . Of chief importance is the fact that Anthony Mann has kept the action violent and progressive, winding up with a wild Winchester duel on a craggy ridge.”
– Howard Barnes, New York Herald Tribune, June 8, 1950" (NPS)

AA: Anthony Mann had debuted as a Western director at MGM with Devil's Doorway starring Robert Taylor. In the same year his greatest period was launched at Universal with Winchester '73 based on a screenplay by Borden Chase and starring James Stewart with whom he also made the Westerns Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country and The Man from Laramie.

All shot on location, all with a profound sense of the landscape, always also including a human presence. From the beginning Mann's Western landscapes were soulscapes.

Since Bend of the River Mann usually shot in colour, but Winchester '73 is still in black and white, the only b&w Western in the Mann-Stewart cycle which is among the greatest in the history of the Western.

They are based on the concept of the quest, with mythological dimensions which are conscious but unobtrusive, as are the connections to the classics of antiquity and Shakespeare. The protagonist is an innerly torn searcher who confronts his enemy and simultaneously his own dark side.

In Mann's Westerns Stewart matured as a tragic actor. Stewart had been known as a nice humoristic actor, but this film opened new dimensions in him. During his quest Stewart's character, Lin McAdam, discovers that his father's murderer is his own brother. The look of hatred in Stewart's face as he is fighting his enemy is shocking because we realize that Lin is not a hero but an anti-hero.

The cast is rich and wonderful. Shelley Winters as Lola, Stephen McNally as Lin's brother Dutch Henry Brown, Millard Mitchell as High-Spade Frankie Wilson, John McIntire as Joe Lamont, Will Geer as Wyatt Earp, and Jay C. Flippen as Sgt. Wilkes. Rock Hudson has one of his earliest roles as an Indian chief. In a smaller role we can spot Tony Curtis, also in one of his earliest parts. The most memorable performance next to James Stewart is by Dan Duryea. He is at his best as Waco Johnnie Dean.

The film is violent, one of the reflections of the heritage of violence after the Civil War. Lin is a war veteran, too. The direction of action is excellent.

Shot by William H. Daniels, a film noir ambience lingers in the black and white cinematography with expressive silhouettes and shadows. The composition in depth is assured and exciting, as is the use of the moving camera.

This was the first time I saw Anthony Mann in nitrate. The screening did full justice to his rich visual power.

Mlhy na blatech / Mist on the Moors (The Nitrate Picture Show)

František Čáp, Czechoslovakia 1943
Print source: Národní filmový archiv (National Film Archive), Prague
Running time: 93 minutes
E-subtitles in English (following the original translation from 1943).
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 5 May 2018

NPS: "About the print

This print has been in the National Film Archive’s collection since the institution’s beginnings in 1943, so it’s certainly a deposit from this title's first distribution run. A new duplicate negative and acetate print were made in 1976, but the original nitrate remained in NFA’s care. Shrinkage: 0.8%

About the film

“Mist on the Moors examines fates of just about a few people. Their stories are outlined in a short space of time and are a symbolic representation of the drama of life, struggle for justice, human cognizance and the healing power of love. One of the most important components of the film is the nature, which ceases to be a mere stage for its plot—it serves almost as an autonomous plot agent. The movie landscape is a precisely defined and localized one. Only the South Bohemian ponds can serve as the right environment for development of such earthy and typically human stories as we encounter in the Mist on the Moors.”
– Kinorevue 10, 1943 (translated from Czech)" (NPS)

AA: Based on a novel by Karel Klostermann published in 1909, Mist on the Moors is a drama of social consciousness. The working people in the countryside are oppressed, and even fishing and hunting is illegal. Gamekeepers protect their masters' interests with an iron hand. When a gamekeeper spots a young farm lady on a forest path he routinely proceeds to rape her but the lady is rescued in the nick of time by a young poacher. There are many misunderstandings on who did what, and like in other films in this festival, parents are unable to read the young generation. In a society based on inequality and injustice it is hard to do the right thing but that is finally the morale of the tale. "Honesty is the best policy". "Clean conscience before God". "I'll do anything to deserve her".

A lyrical feeling for nature, a celebration of communal labour in haymaking scenes, and lovemaking in the haystack are aspects familiar for a Finnish viewer of films of the same period. Memorable are the fishing and hunting scenes, including a farmhand releasing a yelling deer calf from a poacher's trap. The gigging (tuulastus) sequence in the beginning is visually enchanting.

I hardly know the Czech cinema of the period. Certainly Gustav Machatý's pantheism comes to mind watching this early movie directed by František Čáp. Machatý, especially Extase, was by the way a major influence for our Teuvo Tulio. And for Ingmar Bergman to whose a handful of most influential movies Extase belonged. In Mlhy na blatech visual pleasures are provided by the leading man whose muscular, naked upper body is amply on display.

A luminous quality is enchanting in this vintage nitrate print.

The Razor's Edge (1946) (The Nitrate Picture Show)

The Razor's Edge. Gene Tierney, Tyrone Power.

Edmund Goulding, US 1946
Print source: Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles
Running time: 145 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 5 May 2018

NPS: "About the print

Arthur Miller’s wonderful black-and-white cinematography is highlighted by this well-conserved nitrate print. Warpage was a concern, and certain reels have many splices. Some scratches are noticeable, and some edge repair was necessary. Shrinkage: 0.6%

About the film

“Somerset Maugham, who authored this best-seller, has given the screen a plot which has a little of everything for virtually every taste. It has a message of faith for the fans who are not regular showgoers, a background of two continents with an ever-changing pattern of romance (for the women); a ‘Don Birnham’ characterization by a French barfly (for the dramatic fans), and Tyrone Power (who is well liked by everybody).”
– Paul Jones, Atlanta Constitution, November 24, 1946

“The picture has mobile camera work that telescopes time or space, as needed, offering fascinating shots of Paris dives, the Riviera, a Himalayan mountain top and ‘period’ scenes of life in the 1920s. Much of the philosophy of the film is dispensed in neat little verbal capsules. There is some obvious sermonizing, but at least the film’s propaganda has the virtue of being illustrated by character study. Moreover, an idea or two of the type found in The Razor’s Edge will do no harm scattered by means of the motion picture into the present world. Hollywood deserves credit for producing a thought-provoking film of this nature.”
– Baltimore Sun, December 26, 1946

“It is doubtful that any picture in the modern cycle has embodied more divergent elements of dramatic appeal. . . . Essentially a melodrama, the story . . . presents a deftly woven pattern of jealousy, greed, snobbery and fear, offset by a study of profound faith and exaltation. It is an unusual—and usually incompatible—combination that has been wielded here with extraordinary smoothness and remarkable effectiveness.”
– Nelson B. Bell, Washington Post, January 9, 1947" (NPS)

AA: Connections, connections. Watching films in a festival one starts to see connections such as the figure of the overpowering father in Holiday (seen last night) and The Razor's Edge (this morning). Both fathers are self-centered and making the life of the young generation miserable. In this epic film the father figure Elliott Templeton is played by Clifton Webb. Templeton's vanity and narcissism keep growing literally until his deathbed.

The Razor's Edge belongs to the special movies in which a famous author participates as a character in his own story. Other examples would include Jean Servais as Guy de Maupassant in Max Ophuls's Le Plaisir. Here Herbert Marshall plays W. Somerset Maugham, a discreet observer and participant in key scenes. There are also films in which the authors appear themselves: as themselves or playing roles written by them. F. E. Sillanpää appears as the narrator in Roland af Hällström's Poika eli kesäänsä. Stephen King plays a role in George A. Romero's Creepshow. Irvine Welsh is a drug dealer in Trainspotting. James Dickey is the sheriff in Deliverance.

Darryl F. Zanuck (new startling Me Too revelations about whom I happened to read during this weekend) produced the film with an all star Fox cast. Besides Clifton Webb, Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney and Anne Baxter are in key roles. Tyrone Power had been a Fox star since 1936, a dashing lead in Jesse James, Blood and Sand, and The Mark of Zorro, and expanding his scope in difficult psychological roles such as Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge.

Edmund Goulding was a great women's director* and an equally great men's director. He had gotten his breakthrough at MGM, switched to Warner Bros. and worked at 20th Century Fox since 1943. His two Tyrone Power vehicles there, The Razor's Edge and Nightmare Alley, were among his best.

Seen today, The Razor's Edge emerges as a story relevant to the centenary of WWI, another great "lost generation" tale which must have struck a chord in 1946. Larry Darrell has been saved on the front by a friend who gave his life for him. He feels lost, and it takes him ten years to find his balance, which finally succeeds in the highlands of the Himalayas. He has been snubbed by his elite friends who have no idea of what he is going through, but he is above being resentful for that.

With men like this, women can feel disoriented, as well. Women stay with money or marry money. Isabel (Gene Tierney) marries a millionaire, Gray (John Payne). They lose everything in the stock market crash of 1929. Larry thanks to skills learned on the Himalayas is able to heal Gray who gets a nervous breakdown.

The only one who has survived the Wall Street crash is Elliott Templeton who has been selling short, profited enormously and retired to the Riviera where he keeps getting more snobbish by the day and where his main joy is in his noble and royal contacts. Larry, whom Elliott has always despised, makes the final moment of his life happy by faking a royal invitation for him.

The character of Larry belongs to the most interesting religious characters in the cinema. His spirituality is a mix of Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism. His happiness is in his good deeds for which he expects no acknowledgement. He lives in humble circumstances but is richer than the others.

Larry saves from the gutter Sophie MacDonald (Anne Baxter) whom he is about to marry. The jealous Isabel who has never stopped loving Larry traps Sophie back to alcoholism and a destructive path that leads to her murder. With her ingenious plot Isabel only achieves a situation in which Larry will never have anything to do with her.

There is a big, sprawling, epic approach in the movie which is not without moments of kitsch, such as the sequence on the Himalayas shot on the Fox backlot. Towards the end the storytelling is needlessly prolonged.

The Razor's Edge is a melodrama, and the performances are highly stylized, not psychologically convincing. This is polished, glamorous star acting, missing nuance and complexity.

The cinematography by Arthur C. Miller is stunning with something close to a plan-séquence concept. The long, elaborate camera movements are breathtaking, connecting a large cast of characters with clarity and excitement.

The visual quality is gorgeous, the sense of depth essential to a story like this.

* Louise Brooks on his dear friend Eddie Goulding: "His name evokes a vision of sex without sin which paralyzes the guilty mind of Hollywood. All for love, he directed his sexual events with the same attention he gave the directing of films." (Louise Brooks: "Why I Will Never Write My Memoirs". Focus on Film, Nr. 15, March 1978).

Holiday (1938) (The Nitrate Picture Show)

Holiday (1938). Lew Ayres, Katherine Hepburn, Henry Kolker, Binnie Barnes.

George Cukor, US 1938
Print source: UCLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles
Running time: 97 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print

This rare sepia-toned print shows some vertical and horizontal streaking on the image due to processing chemicals that have improperly dried on the film. It may have been a rejected print. Nevertheless, the image underneath the color is quite extraordinary and demonstrates that toning in the sound era was neither uncommon nor inadvisable. Shrinkage: 1%

About the film

“One of the finest of the year on every count; should make plenty. This is a splendid picture and deserves laurels on every count. Direction, acting and dialogue are of the best, with the production certain to be rated among the most important of the year. George Cukor has given it skillful, sympathetic direction and has injected several human touches.”
– Film Daily, May 20, 1938

“Philip Barry’s play, Holiday, which in film form was a smash hit eight years ago in the depression’s depth, rises to box office heights as a recession remake. George Cukor has given it an up-to-the-moment directorial treatment, and the starring team of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant provide attractive marquee persuasion. . . . Holiday is produced with so much spirit and spontaneity that the handicap of being a remake is unlikely to retard its popularity. It is handsomely mounted and stamped with fine technical work throughout. Possessing class and superlative entertainment qualities, it should move smoothly into the best first runs.”
– Variety, May 18, 1938

“Katharine Hepburn plays leading role of Linda Seton with the same emotional power that she displayed in Bill of Divorcement and Morning Glory. Her acting is of the highest order, and she combines with superb effect comedy and hysteria, depth of feeling and indifference. Cary Grant, who plays opposite the star once more, proves that he can portray a ‘straight’ role as competently and cleverly as his light comedy roles.”
– Daily Boston Globe, May 28, 1938" (NPS)

AA: George Cukor, the great star-maker, had launched Katharine Hepburn in her film debut in A Bill of Divorcement, casting her with John Barrymore who became her mentor. Cukor made her his Jo in Little Women. In Sylvia Scarlett Cukor revealed the chemistry between Hepburn and Cary Grant. That chemistry keeps growing in Holiday, a film in which Cukor is at his best.

Donald Ogden Stewart and Sidney Buchman updated Philip Barry's stage comedy favourite of ten years ago. (Both screenwriters were later to be blacklisted by the HUAC). They also wrote The Philadelphia Story for Cukor, Hepburn and Grant, a brilliant sequel and reversal of Holiday, but in Holiday the zany spirit is fresher. The emotional power of Holiday is more compelling.

Holiday is an account of a dysfunctional family. They are rich and unhappy, the embodiment of which is the son Ned (Lew Ayres) whose spirit has been broken by his overpowering father. He has become a spineless alcoholic.

The counterforce to the millionaire family is the unconventional Potter couple (Edward Everett Horton and Jean Dixon). They are Grant's true friends,

This holiday is serious business. The title of the play and the film adaptations mean holiday from work but not in the usual sense of leisure. It is about not losing oneself in routine, in a life defined, dictated and directed by others. The rebels refuse even mixing business with pleasure but demand "a clean break" to "make our own life".

Holiday is also a profound love story, true love meaning reinventing oneself and discovering the deepest layers of one's self in the company of the significant other.

Cukor directs a great ensemble here, not only in the main roles but including everyone in big setpieces such as the engagement party. Cukor kept growing as a master of the mise-en-scène. His great ensemble shots are dynamic and full of life.

Cary Grant's acrobatic skills are on display. During the engagement party Grant and Hepburn perform a tumbling trick. In the finale Grant is doing a back flip in the ship's hallway when he sees Hepburn in the middle of the handspring and falls flat on his tummy. Grant then pulls Hepburn down to the floor for the final kiss.

I had arrived from Helsinki to Rochester the night before. Jet lag due to the seven hour time difference hit me in the mid part of the screening which I partly missed due to fatigue. I have seen this marvellous film before and included it in my handbook of the 1100 greatest films of all times (MMM Elokuvaopas 1995, 2005), but there is much that I had forgotten.

The sepia toning was refined and elegant. Toning can be memorable in sound films as I know from our vintage first run prints of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar. And of the beautiful UCLA restoration of One Hour with You directed by Ernst Lubitsch and the uncredited George Cukor.

The shimmering quality of the nitrate added to the elegance of this stylish and wonderful film. We had been warned about the streaking on the image, but it was easy to look beyond it and enjoy the original beauty of Franz Planer's cinematography.

Sommarlek / Summer Interlude (The Nitrate Picture Show)

Sommarlek / Summer Interlude. Birger Malmsten, Maj-Britt Nilsson.

Ingmar Bergman, Sweden 1951
Print source: KAVI, Kansallinen audiovisuaalinen instituutti
(National Audiovisual Institute), Helsinki
Running time: 96 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print

The Finnish Film Archive (Suomen elokuva-arkisto), now known as KAVI, acquired this nitrate print from the film’s Finnish distributor Adams Filmi Oy in 1986. It was screened in an archival setting at the Orion theater in Helsinki in 1987, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 2003. It displays traces of use (moderate scratching), but still looks striking. Shrinkage: 1%

About the film

“From Sweden comes a picture lovely in everything but its title, the Colony’s Illicit Interlude. This beautifully gentle remembrance of things’ past merits a worthier handle as well as your attention. The original title, Sommarlek, literally ‘Summer Play,’ is infinitely truer to the tone. . . . Skillfully told in two levels of time, the story also makes the point that of all the artists, the ballet dancer is the least rewarded for the most work.”
– Washington Post and Times Herald, December 25, 1954

“This beautifully realized recount . . . gives a subtle and sensitive presentation of a strange, youthful love affair, no more meriting the pornographic word “illicit” than it deserves to be labeled smut. For the most part, Director Ingmar Bergman simply traces in clean, poetic terms the dancer’s vivid recollections of a wonderful summer she spent in the home of an aunt and uncle by a beautiful Swedish lake and of the passionate discovery and fulfillment of love with the youth, who later died. It is an idyll that evolves in lovely glimpses of the two young people swimming at dawn, running along rocky ledges, pressing kisses beneath the trees and lying in blissful contentment under the white-clouded dome of the sky.”
– Bosley Crowther, New York Times, October 27, 1954

“Some of the action and nuances of dialogue are a bit daring by American movie standards, but the whole thing is played in such a frank and open-hearted manner that it never gives offense.”
– Otis L. Guernsey, New York Herald Tribune, October 27, 1954" (NPS)

AA: In Ingmar Bergman's oeuvre Fängelse (The Prison) was his serious and ironic farewell to the 1940s. The melancholy beauty of Sommarlek was a harbinger of the future. One can see elements here of The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and Persona, and of course Sommaren med Monika and Bergman's other "summer films" of the 1950s. For the first time Bergman felt that he had full command of his own personal style and approach. The background was a love affair in Bergman's own youth. Also the account of the opera and ballet milieu was based on personal experience.

Maj-Britt Nilsson was Bergman's first great heroine, and in his account of the Nordic summer in the archipelago he created an original vision of the mystique of the white nights, the transience of happiness.

The dynamics of the film is based on the interplay of the past and the present and art and life, as well as life and death. The feeling is genuine and deeply felt. In this festival it is interesting to reflect Bergman in comparison with George Cukor (Holiday) and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (The Red Shoes).

I sampled earlier this year the Bergman 100 DCP of Sommarlek. It is very well made, but it does not convey the magic of Gunnar Fischer's cinematography like our vintage nitrate print.

...

INGMAR BERGMAN CENTENARY

Sommarlek (The Nitrate Picture Show) .

Sånt händer inte här .

Prästen i Uddarbo .

Skammen .

Skammen - continued .

Scener ur ett äktenskap 1-6 .

Ansikte mot ansikte 1-4 .

Reading about Ansikte mot ansikte .

Fanny och Alexander 1-5 .

Isak Jacobi's tale in Fanny och Alexander .

Söndagsbarn . 

Författaren Ingmar Bergman .

Minnet av Ingmar Bergman .

Auf der Suche nach Ingmar Bergman .

Anders Thunberg: Karin Lannby . 

Jan Winter: Dieters bok. Flykting hos familjen Bergman .

Bergman - a Year in a Life .

Bergman - a Year in a Life - continued: Bergman and Women .

Bergman - a Year in a Life - continued: Bergman and Nazism .

FURTHER REMARKS ON FILMS 

Reading about and around Ingmar Bergman (2014) .

Hamnstad (2020 pandemic viewings) .

Törst (2020 pandemic viewings) .

Kvinnors väntan (2016 digital restoration) (2020 pandemic viewings).

Kvinnodröm .

Sommarnattens leende .

Ansiktet .

Nära livet (2008 digital transfer) .

Tystnaden .

Vargtimmen .

Larmar och gör sig till .

INGRID BERGMAN

Jag är Ingrid (Ingrid Bergman centenary 2015) .

Reading about Ingrid Bergman (Ingrid Bergman centenary 2015) .

Reading more about Ingrid Bergman (Ingrid Bergman centenary 2015) .

À PROPOS

Ingmar Bergman. Von Lüge und Wahrheit (2011 exhibition at the Deutsche Kinemathek) .

Robin Wood: Ingmar Bergman: New Edition (2013) .

Harriet Andersson Sodankylä morning discussion (2012) .

Pernilla August Sodankylä morning discussion (2019) .

Gunnar Fischer in memoriam (2011) .

Erland Josephson in memoriam (2012). 

Trade Tattoo (The Nitrate Picture Show)

Trade Tattoo. Photo from Lost Continent.

Len Lye, UK 1937
Print source: Museum of Modern Art, New York
Running time: 6 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, The Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print: Despite the shrinkage and warpage, this Technicolor print has not lost its original chromatic brilliance. Shrinkage: 1.15%

About the film: Commissioned by the UK General Post Office Film Unit, Trade Tattoo is a dazzling spectacle of abstract animation in glorious Technicolor, achieved through a complex process of hand-painting, film printing, and color grading." (NPS)

AA: Trade Tattoo is one of Len Lye's masterpieces of abstract animation using a wealth of approaches. The rhythm is engaging, and the score is created by the Lecuona Band. Pure cinema.

A fantastic Technicolor print.

Let's Go to the Movies (The Nitrate Picture Show)

Tholen Gladden, US 1949
Print source: Library of Congress, Culpeper, VA
Running time: 9 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, The Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print: The difference between stock footage from previous productions and new footage shot for this film is noticeable, but the print itself is in very good condition. Shrinkage: 0.7%

About the film: The first in the series of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ documentary shorts celebrating the art and craft of motion pictures, this film features clips of several groundbreaking productions and beloved stars." (NPS)

AA: A quick ride through many stages and aspects of film history and production. Kinetoscope, pre-cinema flicker cards, Méliès, The Great Train Robbery, Nickelodeon, Mary Pickford, The Birth of a Nation, sound cinema: from sound cylinders of wax to Al Jolson in blackface belting "Mammy", John Barrymore in 1929 as Richard III, Night Song (1947), location shooting Key Largo, 80 000 theaters everywhere, the arts and the crafts. An ultra rapid run-through of electronics, exhibition, distribution, acting, sound, music, and editing.

A fine print.

Our Navy (The Nitrate Picture Show)

George A. Dorsey, US 1918
Print source: George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY
Running time: 11 minutes (at 20 frames per second)
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, The Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018
Philip C. Carli at the piano.

NPS: "About the print: The tinted and toned print displays some dirt and oil, but very little scratching. Shrinkage: 1%"

"About the film: Anthropologist and lieutenant in the US Naval Reserve George Amos Dorsey directed this motion picture showcase of US naval forces, featuring some breathtaking shots of metal behemoths at sea." (NPS)

AA: It is stunning to watch a hundred years old print. And to remember that this is the centenary of the armistice of WWI. This is a recruiting film for the navy.

The cinematography is impressive. A magnificent battleship, the pride of the navy, is inaugurated with a bottle of champagne and launched in the sea. There are epic shots. We visit a shipyard and drill exercises on the parade field. We also get to observe submarine chaser fleets, speedboats to catch submarines. A gun is being tested.

The deep focus is engaging. The tinting and toning is refined, not heavy. A memorable viewing experience.

Lowell Thomas' Movietone Adventures: Along the Rainbow Trail (The Nitrate Picture Show)

20th Century Fox, US 1946
Print source: Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles
Running time: 9 minutes
Viewed at the Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print: The film’s brilliant Technicolor hues remain astounding, though the print shows some scratching from projection. Shrinkage: 0.7%"

"About the film: Narrated by the popular writer, broadcaster, and traveler Lowell Thomas, this Movietone News short chronicles a trip down the rapids of the San Juan River ending with a view of the Rainbow Bridge." (NPS)

AA: A film about the making the film about the adventure in the San Juan River rapids. Such scenes are familiar in Finnish cinema. Some of the rapids are very dangerous. There is hot food at breakfast. Growing a beard spells bad luck. "How tiny we are". A stentorian narrator in this film as well.

Glorious Technicolor.

Father Hubbard's Movietone Adventures: Lost Lake (The Nitrate Picture Show)

20th Century Fox, US 1944
Print source: Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles
Running time: 8 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print: The Cinecolor process has produced some inconsistent coloring and bars across the image. The physical condition is good. Shrinkage: 0.7%"

"About the film: Shot in gorgeous Cinecolor, an early subtractive two-color process, Lost Lake follows the famed Jesuit priest, geologist, and explorer Father Bernard Rosecrans Hubbard on his trip to discover a lost lake on top of an Alaskan glacier."

AA: A travelogue, a trek in the nature in Alaska in the company of the "glacier priest" Bernard Hubbard. Wild rivers, dangerous plants, driftwood, awesome mountains, crevasses and chasms, stentorian commentary. The lost lake is found and the mystery of the floods is solved.

A very nice sample of Cinecolor.

Människor i stad / Symphony of a City (The Nitrate Picture Show)

A Movietone Specialty: Symphony of a City (US version)
Människor i stad, Arne Sucksdorff, Sweden 1947
Print source: Academy Film Archive, Los Angeles
Running time: 11 minutes
Viewed at The Nitrate Picture Show (NPS), George Eastman Museum, Dryden Theatre, Rochester, 4 May 2018

NPS: "About the print: The film is in excellent condition, with deep, rich contrast and very little scratching nor damage. Shrinkage: 0.63%"

"About the film: Arne Sucksdorff, “the brilliant Swedish artist who has been widely and properly acclaimed for such fresh and evocative short films as Symphony of a City” (New York Times, 1955), won an Academy Award in 1949 for Best Short Subject (One-Reel) with this masterful, poetic depiction of a day in Stockholm." (NPS)

AA: Arne Sucksdorff's classic documentary of Stockholm starts with a birds' eye view in the company of seagulls. The flying motif continues with views of  Carl Milles statues with their Icarus obsession (see image above). People are sunbathing, but a heavy rain interrupts them. Boy meets girl. Children are at play, and welders work in the street. A sense of the sacred is present at the church. A verger comes to help the children who have dropped their coins on the floor. Fishermen catch fish with nets, an artist paints them, and seagulls snatch a fishing boy's catch. We return to their birds' eye view, and the boy and a blind man walk together as the night comes and streetlights are lit. There is no spoken sound, only music and sound effects.

A brilliant print with a beautiful dynamics from full black to glistening white and everything in between.

Ça commence aujourd’hui / It All Starts Today

Tänään se alkaa / Den börjar i dag.
    FR 1999. PC: Little Bear Productions / Les Films Alain Sarde S.A. Co-PC: TF1 Films Production. P: Alain Sarde, Frédéric Bourboulon. D: Bertrand Tavernier. SC: Dominique Sampiero, Tiffany Tavernier, Bertrand Tavernier. DP: Alain Choquart – Super 35 – colour – 2,35:1. AD: Thierry François. Cost: Marpessa Djian. Makeup: Agnès Tassel. Hair: Beya Gasmi. M: Louis Sclavis. S: Michel Desrois, Gérard Lamps, Didier Lize – Dolby DTS. ED: Sophie Brunet.
    C: Philippe Torreton (Daniel Lefebvre), Maria Pitarresi (Valéria), Nadia Kaci (Samia Damouni), Véronique Ataly (Madame Liénard), Nathalie Bécue (Cathy), Emmanuelle Bercot (Madame Tievaux), Françoise Bette (Madame Delacourt), Christine Citti (Madame Baudoin), Christina Crevillén (Sophie), Sylviane Goudal (Gloria), Didier Bezace (inspector), Betty Teboulle (Mrs. Henry), Gérard Giroudon (Mayor).
    Loc: Derrière les Haies, Anzin.
    À Luce Grunenwaldt.
    Sortie en France: 12 March 1999.
    Helsinki premiere: 28.1.2000 Kino Engel 1, distributor: Cinema Mondo Oy with Finnish subtitles by Outi Kainulainen – telecast 27.5.2004 YLE TV1 – VET 101602 – S – 3245 m / 117 min, 119 min
    Screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Bertrand Tavernier), 28 April 2018

Synopsis by Unifrance: "Daniel Lefebvre heads a kindergarten in Hernaing, northern France. The son of a miner, he works in a once-affluent area that is now plagued by unemployment. Backed by a competent and devoted team of teachers, he encourages verbal and intellectual creativity among the children. One afternoon, a woman named Mme Henry arrives late to pick up her daughter. When bending over to kiss the child, she crumples in the school yard, dead drunk; overcome with embarrassment, she flees, leaving her little girl and her infant there. Daniel suddenly finds himself lumbered with the two kids." " En essayant coûte que coûte d'inventer une solidarité, de travailler en équipe avec les assistantes sociales, les parents d'élèves, la mairie, la PMI, il va se heurter au morcellement du système : chacun travaille dans son coin. La guerre est déclarée et c'est toute sa vie d'homme et d'enseignant qui est remise en question."

A magnificent and engrossing drama of social consciousness set in an école maternelle, a French kindergarten featuring a passionate and committed director fighting unfathomable deprivation. There is a great tradition of such drama in the French cinema, also including La Maternelle (1933), a masterpiece directed by Jean Benoît-Levy and Marie Epstein.

The circumstances are desperate because of daunting unemployment in a town which has lost its principal industry, the mining industry. But this film is about an unbroken spirit and a will to fight to the end. Clearly this is a labour of love for its makers, including Bertrand Tavernier and the leading actor, Philippe Torreton.

Conventional gender roles are reversed. Daniel (Torreton) works at the kindergarten in a "feminine" occupation. His partner Valéria (Maria Pitarresi) is a sculptor who welds and uses heavy tools in "masculine" fashion.

The premises are depressing, but the film is life-affirming in many ways. The spirit of the teachers is indomitable. The cinematography is ebullient with a particularly fresh and delightful colour palette. The children themselves are in the center, full of a joy of life. The children are the future, and the teachers are fighting for them. Towards the finale there is a fantastic party on the school yard, with a real orchestra, a huge installation with coloured bottles, Arab delicacies, and a dance. Even the film's title is a defiant motto of affirmation.

Which does not make us forget hunger, poverty, deprivation, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicides, collective suicides of families, disconnected landlines, and electricity shutdowns in winter of families with little children.

The bureaucracy at any level of the government is not helpful. There is an abyss of ignorance and negligence. The inspectors who pay fleeting visits are out of their depth. Budgets are woefully insufficient.

The issues are topical in Finland, too. We had a political strike of the early childhood educators of the province of Uusimaa on 25 April. They are underpaid and understaffed.

We learn that Daniel himself has been a victim of domestic violence in childhood. He has outgrown the revenge principle and turned into a man who fights abuse and deprivation of any kind. He still works at a reconciliation with his embittered father, and a beautiful text written by him moves his parents in the finale.

Also Valéria's son carries a grudge and finds it hard to understand that his father had dumped Valéria when she became a teenage mother. It is tough for him to realize that his father left Valéria because of him. Only when he understands Daniel's tragedy with his own father he starts to accept Daniel.

The film is rich and dense, based on short scenes and rapid cutting. It will benefit from multiple viewings.

A location in which the film was shot was Anzin, "connue pour être le premier site du bassin minier du Nord-Pas-de-Calais où la houille fut exploitée, et réputée pour la longue grève des mineurs de 1884 dont Émile Zola s'inspira pour écrire Germinal. Le mouvement aboutit à la promulgation de la loi Waldeck-Rousseau qui autorise les syndicats."

Ça commence aujourd’hui can be seen as a coda to Émile Zola's Germinal (1885) which has been memorably filmed several times (by Ferdinand Zecca, 1903, Albert Capellani, 1913, Yves Allégret, 1963, and Claude Berri, 1993, among others).

A particularly brilliant print with a fresh colour scale. I wondered if it might be possible that it has been struck from the original negative. Anyway it looks wonderful. This print runs 119 min.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON TUUVE ARO:

La donna scimmia / The Ape Woman

Le Mari de la femme à barbe.
    IT/FR 1964. PC: Compagnia Cinematografica Champion (Roma) / Les Films Marceau (Parigi). P: Carlo Ponti. D: Marco Ferreri. SC: Rafael Azcona, Marco Ferreri. DP: Aldo Tonti – b&w – 1,37:1. AD: Mario Garbuglia. Cost: Piero Tosi. M: Teo Usuelli. S: Primiano Muratori – mono. ED: Mario Serandrei.
    C: Ugo Tognazzi (Antonio Focaccia), Annie Girardot (Maria), Achille Majeroni (impresario teatrale Majeroni), Filippo Pompa Marcelli (Bruno), Ermelinda De Felica (Sister Furgonicino), Antonio Altoviti (professor), Elvira Paolini (chambermaid), Ugo Rossi (Ponszoner).
    Runtime according to the IMDb: 93 min, 92 min (US), 100 min (FR), 84 min (IT).
    Based on the true story of Julia Pastrana (1834–1860) and her manager Theodore Lent.
    Il film è stato selezionato tra i 100 film italiani da salvare.
    Restauré en 2017, ce film devenu introuvable est proposé avec trois fins, une italienne censurée où le film se termine par la mort de la femme et de son bébé, une italienne non censurée où le mari récupère les cadavres embaumés de la mère et de l'enfant pour poursuivre son commerce de foire aux monstres, une française, où la femme redevient normale suite à l'accouchement, et où le mari se plaint du manque à gagner. Le médecin accoucheur finit par lui procurer une place de docker au port.
    The film was not released in Finland.
    35 mm print with e-surtitles in English by XX viewed at Viva Erotica (WHS Union), 27 April 2018.
   
I saw for the first time La donna scimmia, a story of itinerant variety show performers who hit the big time and become a cabaret attraction at Montmartre.

The struggling male protagonist Antonio Focaccia [focaccia means Italian flat bread] discovers a hairy nun, Maria, and creates a touring spectacle around her as "an ape woman", performing himself as an African explorer who has captured her in the jungle. Maria is chaste and does not want spectators to touch her. They meet a professor, but Maria refuses to undress for him, and she also refuses the professor's offer to stay for three days "for study" at a compensation of 100 000 Lire.

The mother superior condemns Antonio who would like to adopt Maria. "How many old men come to adopt girls of 14, 15... " The condition for releasing Maria is that Focaccia must marry her.

The tale of a ruthless small-time showman and an inexperienced, exploited woman shares its basic concept with Federico Fellini's La strada but is otherwise completely different.

La donna scimmia is a story of abuse and exploitation, but is also a story of mutual affection, and perhaps love. The wedding sequence is moving and spectacular: the wedding procession attracts a huge crowd of spectators on the street.

Zampanò in La strada was a sexual brute but Focaccia has little interest in sex ("I love you like a brother loves a sister"). In fact, it is Maria who seduces him and wants to have a baby with him. By the time they reach Montmartre they present quite an erotic show with sensual dancing and see-through nudity, but this seems to happen on Maria's terms.

The pregnancy is calamitous, and despite doctors' warnings Maria refuses an abortion. Antonio is shattered when both mother and baby die at the maternity ward.

At first Antonio deposits the corpses with the Natural History Museum, but he returns to retrieve the mummies to continue his La donna scimmia tour with them.

Although Ferreri's approach is original, he shares with La strada a neorealistic inspiration combined with a taste for the extraordinary in a spectacle. The location shooting is powerful, and the movie is full of juicy and wonderful characters down to bit parts. There is still a sense of spontaneity, impulsiveness and vitality in the way of life on display.

Wonderful scenes include one at the zoo which Antonio and Maria visit to observe and imitate a chimpanzee. They are evicted when the chimpanzee becomes irritated by them.

For me, La donna scimmia represents Marco Ferreri at his best. I learned to know him by his big international hit period (La grande bouffe, Touche pas à la femme blanche, La dernière femme, Storie di ordinaria follia); those films are impressive, yet also slightly shallow. I have also seen Ferreri's early Spanish films: the remarkable El pisito and also Los chicos and El cochecito, which are admirable, but inevitably Franco era censorship was constraining for the wild talents of Ferreri and his screenwriter Rafael Azcona.

Watching La donna scimmia I feel like for the first time seeing the true Ferreri, and look forward to seeing his other Italian films of the 1960s, from L'ape regina (Queen Bee) to Dillinger è morto which was a favourite of Peter von Bagh.

Ferreri's key collaborator, also in La donna scimmia, was his screenwriter Rafael Azcona with whom he made 14 films in all periods of his career (Spanish, Italian, international). They shared a taste for the absurd and an approach of satire. El pisito was their mutual breakthrough film.

This is a solid production by Carlo Ponti who was also a co-producer in La strada. There is also a special Luchino Visconti connection in the production team which includes Visconti's art director Mario Garbuglia, his costume designer Piero Tosi, and his editor Mario Serandrei. Another formidable veteran is the brilliant cinematographer Aldo Tonti whose CV includes collaborations from Rossellini to Huston, not forgetting Fellini's Le notti di Cabiria.

Among the veterans is also the actor Achille Majeroni who had started his film career before WWI and whose last film La donna scimmia was. He is best remembered from Fellini's I vitelloni.

The composer is Teo Usuelli who started his film career in Ferreri's L'ape regina and composed seven films for him. There is an affinity with Nino Rota in the circus ambience that launches the film, but Usuelli has a sound world of his own, covering everything from the sacred to the mundane.

La Girardot. A key Visconti connection is the performer of the ape woman herself: Annie Girardot, who is at first almost unrecognizable here. I last saw Girardot in Mourir d'aimer (1971) and it took me a while to accept that this is the same actress. Girardot had, in fact, started her career as a performer in the cabarets of Montmartre. She progressed to La Comédie-Française, and Luchino Visconti cast her in a theatre role and then in Rocco e i suoi fratelli. During its filming Girardot fell in love with Renato Salvatori whom she married and with whom she had a baby. Thus started the Italian current in Girardot's work, including three films for Ferreri, of which La donna scimmia was the first. Girardot's performance as Maria is unique and deeply moving. The implications are deep and relevant to philosophical questions of appearance and essence. And humanity and otherness.

Ugo Tognazzi became a Marco Ferreri regular starting with Ferreri's first Italian film, L'ape regina; they did ten films together. Tognazzi, a mainstay of commedia all'italiana, is usually a satirical genius, an incarnation of insincerity. Also La donna scimmia builds on this very basis, but Tognazzi creates a complex and unpredictable performance on it.

On display was the uncensored Italian version which ran 92 minutes. A used print which breathed and conveyed a sense of the original visual health of the movie. A print struck from the original negative or not too far removed from it.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM THE ITALIAN WIKIPEDIA:

L’Appât / Fresh Bait

Syötti / Lockbetet / The Bait.
    Ranska 1995. PC: Little Bear Productions / Hachette Première & Cie. Co-Production Companies: M6 Film / France 2 Cinéma. P: René Cleitman, Frédéric Bourboulon. D: Bernard Tavernier. SC: Colo Tavernier O’Hagan, Bernard Tavernier – based on the novel by Morgan Sportès (1990). DP: Alain Choquart. PD: Emile Ghigo. Cost: Marpessa Djian. Makeup: Agnès Tassel. M: Philippe Haïm. S: Michel Desrois, Gérard Lamps. ED: Luce Grunenwaldt.
    Film extract: Brian DePalma: Scarface (1983).
    Music video: Peter Gabriel: "Kiss That Frog" (1993), D: Brett Leonard.
    C: Marie Gillain (Nathalie), Olivier Sitruk (Eric), Bruno Putzulu (Bruno), Richard Berry (Alain), Jean-Louis Richard (le patron du restaurant), Christophe Odent (Laurent), Jean-Paul Comart (Michel), Philippe Helies (Pierre), Philippe Torreton (le chef de la police), François Berléand (inspector Durieux), Thierry Gimenez (un policier), François Levantal (un policier), Jacky Nercessian (M. Tapiro, Nathalie's boss), Alain Sarde (Philippe).
    Helsinki premiere: 29.7.1996 Bio City 1, distributed by Kamras Film Group Oy with Finnish / Swedish subtitles (n.c.). Telecast: 16.2.2000 YLE TV2. VET 99845 – K16 – 3210 m / 117 min
    Screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Bertrand Tavernier), 24 April 2018.

I confess I suffer from a fatigue of crime fiction, including Nordic Noir, with serial killings and fancy murders. Real-life crime has little to do with such fiction. Truly epic crimes are cases of fraud in the world of financial speculation, of a magnitude the world has never seen. The biggest criminals are careful not to get involved with violence. Even professional burglars never carry a weapon.

L'Appât is a true life story of young and marginalized amateur criminals. There is nothing fancy in this tale, but it is deeply moving and conveyed with genuine feeling for both the criminals and their victims by maestro Bertrand Tavernier. It is a work rich in implications of the social psychology of crime.

The criminal trio consists of Eric (Olivier Sitruk), Bruno (Bruno Putzulu), and Nathalie (Marie Gillain) . Eric is a son from a wealthy home, but his father has cancelled his checkbook because Eric has no sense of money. Bruno is an orphan, reportedly found as a baby in a shopping cart. Nathalie is from a good and loving home, and she has a nice job, but in the evenings she is active as an escort (providing company only, but apparently no sex). The desperate duo, Eric and Bruno, get the idea to consult Nathalie's book of her regular clients (she is usually the one who calls them) and use Nathalie both as a bait and a Troyan horse helping them to get in and commit robbery. The result is a disaster. The clients have ingenious security systems. Nobody keeps at home money or such valuables that can be easily cashed into money. Bruno is a loose cannon, and Bruno and Eric end up brutally murdering two victims. They end up with a minimal catch and maximal culpability.

The performances feel true to life. The characters are interesting and surprising. For instance Bruno is the more tender one of the guys. He is the one who defends Nathalie from Eric's violence. Everyone is a part of a materialistic world. There is not much spirituality in evidence.

The film is full of interesting scenes and observations. In the beginning Nathalie and her best girlfriend laugh at the sex polls of a magazine. There is a quarrel at home concerning the use of the remote control. Bruno watches television quiz shows which support his sense that wealth is not earned. At their victims' homes Bruno marvels at cases of conspicuous consumption such as a cinema-size television screen.

Sexual harassment is ubiquitous. The female viewpoint is strong. Nathalie has to be permanently vigilant, even against rape attempts and domestic violence.

There is a Jewish angle in the final robbery tragedy. Alain (Richard Berry) senses correctly that Eric is Jewish like he. The attempt at bonding does not save Alain, nor Eric from himself.

The references to popular culture seem to indicate that films such as Brian DePalma's Scarface contribute to demoralization and soullessness, as well as music videos. I'm not sure that Peter Gabriel is a good example to illustrate the detrimental aspect of the music video.

There is a sense of convincing realism in the police investigations.

L'Appât is an original contribution to accounts of an age ruled by the spirit of instant gratification.

A fundamentally good and complete print.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE BASED ON KATI SINISALO AND RAIMO KINISJÄRVI:

Licht / Mademoiselle Paradis

Mademoiselle Paradis / Mademoiselle Paradis.
    AT/DE © 2017 NGF Nikolaus Geyrhalter Filmproduktion GmbH / LOOKS Filmproduktionen GmbH. P: Nikolaus Geyrhalter, Michael Kitzberger. D: Barbara Albert. SC: Kathrin Resetarits – based on the novel Am Anfang war die Nacht Musik (2010) by Alissa Walser. CIN: Christine A. Maier – source format: Apple ProRes 4444 XQ – colour – 2,39:1 – release format: DCP. PD: Katharina Wöppermann. Cost: Veronika Albert. M: Lorenz Dangel. ED: Niki Mossböck.
    Soundtrack: played by Sonja Leipold: selections from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Baldassare Galuppi, Johann Baptist Vanhal, Joseph Haydn, Lorenz Dangel, J. S. Bach, Johann Philipp Kirnberger, Maria Theresia von Paradis (Fantasie in G Major).
    C: Maria Dragus (Maria Theresia von Paradis, "Resi"), Devid Striesow (Franz Anton Mesmer), Lukas Miko (Joseph Anton Paradis, Resi's father), Katja Kolm (Maria Rosalia Paradis, Resi's mother), Maresi Riegner (maid Agnes, "Agi"), Stefanie Reinsperger (Johanna the cook), Susanne Wuest (Jungfer Ossine), Christoph Luser (Count Pellegrini), Johanna Orsini-Rosenberg (Maria Anna von Posch, Mesmer's wife), Lukas Watzl (Seelenmann), Martina Spitzer (Miazl), Margarethe Tiesel (Marquise).
    Kinostart Austria: 10 Nov 2017, Germany: 1 Feb 2018.
    Finnish premiere: 13 April 2018, DCP released by Cinema Mondo with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Maria Uusitalo / Frej Grönholm.
    Viewed at Kinopalatsi 6, Helsinki, 22 April 2018.
97 min

Based on the novel by Alissa Walser, Barbara Albert's Licht / Mademoiselle Paradis is a historical drama, a biopic about the Austrian composer, virtuoso pianist and musical Wunderkind Maria Theresia von Paradis, a contemporary of Haydn and Mozart. In early childhood she lost her eyesight.

We meet her at age 18 when she is brought for treatment to Franz Anton Mesmer, the physician after whom the word "mesmerizing" was coined. Mesmer believed in animal magnetism, a natural energetic transference between objects. Widely dismissed as a charlatan, Mesmer was parodied in Mozart's Così fan tutte. Yet Mesmer's practices were an inspiration for the development of hypnosis, studies of somnambulism, and the birth of psychoanalysis. An affinity has been observed with Chinese medicine based on the principle of the vital energy called qi.

Licht / Mademoiselle Paradis is a drama about the meeting of two exceptional minds, Paradis and Mesmer. The viewpoint of Walser and Albert is not satirical or parodical. Mesmer is not a charlatan but a kind and patient healer. In fact, he manages to help Paradis regain her eyesight. But at the same time she starts to lose her genius in music. When her father takes her home again she loses her eyesight again but regains her piano virtuosity.

The irony of the film is in the fact that there is not much worth seeing for Paradis. Having regained her eyesight she is disappointed at how people look. The period look of the Rococo film is strong. Instead of targeting Mesmer, Walser and Albert satirize the world he lives in, a world of artifice, prejudice, narrow-mindedness, and big wigs. It is also a world of patriarchy. There is little love lost between Maria Theresa von Paradis and her father.

Licht / Mademoiselle Paradis is an intriguing film about a woman's struggle against patriarchy and a doctor's fight against prejudice.

It also raises philosophical questions about seeing and hearing. And light itself.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: DATA FROM THE PRESSBOOK:

The Post

The Post / The Post.
    US 2017. PC: 20th Century Fox / DreamWorks Pictures / Amblin Entertainment / Participant Media / Pascal Pictures / Star Thrower Entertainment.
    P: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger / Amy Pascal. D: Steven Spielberg. SC: Liz Hannah, Josh Singer. DP: Janusz Kaminski – colour – 1,85:1 – negative: 35 mm – source: Super 35 – master: digital intermediate 4K – release formats: 35 mm, D-Cinema. PD: Rick Carter. AD: Kim Jennings, Deborah Jensen. Set dec: Rena DeAngelo. Cost: Ann Roth. Makeup: Judy Chin. Hair: Christine Fennell, Kay Georgiou. VFX: Lola VFX. M: John Williams. Soundtrack: "Green River" (John Fogerty) perf. Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc. S: Brian Chumney, Richard Hymns. ED: Michael Kahn, Sarah Broshar. Casting: Ellen Lewis.
    C: Meryl Streep (Katharine Graham), Tom Hanks (Ben Bradlee), Sarah Paulson (Antoinette "Tony" Pinchot Bradlee), Bob Odenkirk (Ben Bagdikian), Tracy Letts (Fritz Beebe), Bradley Whitford (Arthur Parsons), Bruce Greenwood (Robert McNamara), Matthew Rhys (Daniel Ellsberg), Alison Brie (Lally Graham), Carrie Coon (Meg Greenfield), Jesse Plemons (Roger Clark), David Cross (Howard Simons), Michael Stuhlbarg (A. M. Rosenthal), Zach Woods (Anthony Essaye).
    Dedicated to Nora Ephron.
    Release date: 22 Dec 2017 (limited), 12 Jan 2018 (wide).
    Finnish premiere: 2 Feb 2018, released by Nordisk Film in D-Cinema with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Jaana Wiik / Ditte Kronström.
    Viewed at Tennispalatsi 14, 21 April 2018.
    113 min

A major historical drama, a key story about the freedom of the press, one of the finest newspaper movies, a great tale about America, an essential feminist film.

Written by Liz Hannah who was inspired by the memoirs of Katharine Graham (Personal History, 1997). Her collaborator was a more experienced screenwriter, Josh Singer, the scenarist of The Fifth Estate (2013, on WikiLeaks) and Spotlight (2014, on the Boston Globe's exposure of the Boston Catholic priests' pedophilia tragedy). The powerful screenplay is strong on suspense based purely on the facts of the matter. We learn private aspects of the protagonists, but the tensions rise solely from the Pentagon Papers case.

Steven Spielberg has for a long time alternated between serious historical subjects and spectacles of popular entertainment. In The Post he is at his best. In some of his serious works there has been a slight tendency to prolong discourse, but The Post is taut and brisk, executed with a perfect sense of rhythm.

Among the films with which The Post is compared is naturally Alan Pakula's All the President's Men (1974) with which it shares a protagonist, Ben Bradlee, played in Pakula's film by Jason Robards.

The Post is very different from Pakula's noirish classic of Nixon-era paranoia. The Post is more sunny, more family-centered. There is a family atmosphere even in the Washington Post newsroom. The family focus provides a major point of conflict, too. Katharine Graham and Ben Bradlee have become family friends of presidents, and Robert McNamara is Katharine Graham's mentor. Now it turns out that he has been lying blatantly to everybody about America's involvement in Vietnam. The conflict is the greatest possible for the newspaperwoman.

This is very strong stuff, and Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks rise to the occasion magnificently, both doing some of their best work.

The Post resonates powerfully in the age of Donald Trump, President of the United States since 2017. Freedom and authority can never be taken for granted.

A very special and highly moving accent in the movie is the feminist angle. Katharine Graham was the first female publisher of a major American newspaper. In this film we observe her being systematically underrated and disparaged. But against the judgement of all the other members of her (otherwise all male) board she makes the decision to run the story of the Pentagon papers.

In the court battle of the press versus the White House the Supreme Court rules in the newspapers' favour. When Graham emerges from the court, she is surrounded by women who look at her in silent admiration. There was a special charged intensity in the atmosphere of the cinema, too, during this sequence.

The cinematography of Janusz Kaminski is very different from Gordon Willis in All the President's Men. The feeling of warmth is palpable. There is also a slight feeling of digital airbrushing in the photography of Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, a sense of them being between real people and animated characters. I guess I would prefer gritty 1970s aesthetics.

The score of John Williams is the work of a master. Maybe a little less would be more. Dramatic highlights may be more effective played without background music.

The film starts in medias res with a scene in Vietnam, with Daniel Ellsberg on a Pentagon mission for Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. There is no credit sequence in the beginning. The sound starts immediately with "Green River" by Creedence Clearwater Revival, my favourite CCR track and a favourite song of mine of all times; for me, the track was so strong that it threw the movie off balance at first. The obvious choice would have been "Fortunate Son", or perhaps "Run Through the Jungle" (which, however, is not a Vietnam song: "200 million guns are loaded" refers to the weapons that the homes of America possess). But "Green River" is there for contrast: the bucolic ideal of American youth instead of the meaningless hell of Vietnam.

Significantly, the narrative of The Post is a corrective to "Fortunate Son" ("some folks are born silver spoon in hand"). Even Katharine Graham's son Donald served in Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers' revelation that we knew that the war would be lost was very personal history for Katharine Graham.

NB. 10 May 2018. Today I was thinking about The Post and was in tears. I was thinking about my mother Anneli Alanen (1928–2015), a registered nurse who was an activist in road traffic security planning, also an environmentalist and "green traffic" pioneer. She sat in several committees and boards, usually as the only woman in an otherwise all male panel. She was also the only representative of the silent majority of pedestrians, cyclists and other users of light traffic. A systematic underestimating of women was her daily experience. What she fought for is now generally accepted.

BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: PLOT FROM WIKIPEDIA:

A ciascuno il suo / We Still Kill the Old Way / To Each His Own

Elio Petri: A ciascuno il suo. The main credit title. Source: Italian Wikipedia.

Leonardo Sciascia: A ciascuno il suo. The cover of the first edition (1966). Source: English Wikipedia.

Mafian merkitsemä / Jagad av maffian.
    IT 1967. PC: Cemo Film. P: Giuseppe Zaccariello. D: Elio Petri. SC: Elio Petri and Ugo Pirro – based on the novel (1966) by Leonardo Sciascia. DP: Luigi Kuveiller – Technicolor – 1,85:1. PD: Sergio Canevari. Set dec: Giuliana Serano. Cost: Luciana Marinucci. Makeup: Pieroantonia Mecacci. M: Luis Bacalov. Song: ”Rêvé pour l’hiver”, comp. Luis Bacalov, to the poem (1870) by Arthur Rimbaud. S: Mario Bramonti, Mario Morigi. ED: Ruggero Mastroianni.
    C: Gian Maria Volontè (Paolo Laurana, high school teacher), Irene Papas (Luisa Roscio), Gabriele Ferzetti (avvocato Rosello), Laura Nucci (Roscio's mother), Mario Scaccia (priest, curato di Sant'Amo, subscriber to L'Osservatore Romano), Luigi Pistilli (Dr. Arturo Manno, pharmacist), Leopoldo Trieste (Communist deputy), Giovanni Pallavicino (Raganà, mafioso), Luciana Scalise (Rosina), Orio Cannarozzo (ispettore di polizia La Marca), Ana Rivero (Mrs. Manno), Salvo Randone (Roscio, teacher), Carmelo Oliviero (arciprete, uncle of Luisa and Rosello, who raised them as children, subscriber to L'Osservatore Romano), Aldo Cascino (police commissioner).
    Loc: Cefalù and Palermo (Sicily, province of Palermo).
    Helsinki premiere: 16.8.1968 Ritz, distributor: UA United Artists Pictures Inc. – VET 75695 – K16 – sources give 2555 m, 99 min, 93 min – Finnish classification 2580 m / 94 min
    A vintage print with Swedish subtitles by Liliane Lincoln and Finnish e-subtitles by Lena Talvio screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Elio Petri), 21 April 2018

I saw for the first time A ciascuno il suo, a major film by Elio Petri, the great Italian political film-maker.

It was the first film based on a novel by Leonardo Sciascia, novelist and politician, who was among other things a Member of the European Parliament for Southern Italy. Later Sciascia film adaptations include Il giorno della civetta (1968), Cadaveri eccellenti (1976), Todo modo (1976), Porte aperte (1990), and Una storia semplice (1991).

It was also Petri's first collaboration with the great screenwriter Ugo Pirro who would also write for him Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970), La classe operaia va in paradiso (1972), and La proprietà non è più un furto (1973).

Also Petri's collaboration with Gian Maria Volontè started with this film, followed by Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970), La classe operaia va in paradiso (1971), and Todo modo (1976).

A ciascuno il suo is one of the best films of the Sicilian mafia, a theme that features prominently in today's news. ("A court in Italy convicted a mob boss, three police investigators and a close associate of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi in a case showing collusion between the Sicilian Mafia and state institutions after a deadly wave of mafia bombings during the early 1990s." The Associated Press, 20 April 2018, as published in The New York Times).

This is the story of a devious conspiracy in Palermo which a well-meaning teacher (Volontè) tries to expose. Nothing is what it seems, not even the budding romantic interest of the beautiful widow Luisa Roscio (Irene Papas).

Beyond political immediacy there is a Kafkaesque existential dimension in Petri's oeuvre. A nightmare lurks beyond the sunny facade of this film which ends with a splendid wedding ceremony of Luisa and the attorney Rosello (Gabriele Ferzetti), the very person who had ordered the hit in which Luisa's husband was assassinated.

A ciascuno il suo was also the breakthrough film for the great cinematographer Luigi Kuveiller who had been an operator for Aldo Scavarda in L'avventura (1960) and who would become the DP of Profondo rosso, among many other films. Here Kuveiller captures impressively the pervasive sense of menace under the glowing sun of Sicily.

The composer Luis Bacalov (1933–2017) creates a stirring and original score in idioms familiar from contemporary Italian thrillers and Westerns. The score has been published and re-released as a soundtrack album: A ciascuno il suo (Colonna sonora originale, un film di Elio Petri, 1968, 2011), best known by the song "Rêvé pour l'hiver" to the poem by Arthur Rimbaud (see beyond the jump break).

I am slightly disappointed with what I perceive as a spirit of defeatism in this film.

The original Technicolor is lush and authentic in the vintage print. There are joins and scratches in the heads and tails of the reels, but otherwise the visual quality is great. This print runs 93 min.

PLOT SUMMARY OF THE LEONARDO SCIASCIA NOVEL FROM ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA AND DATA ABOUT THE MOVIE FROM ITALIAN WIKIPEDIA:

It's Only Money

It's Only Money. Jerry Lewis as television repairman Lester March harassed by a pigeon.

It's Only Money. Lester (Jerry Lewis) smuggles the private detective Pete Flint (Jesse White) to the Albright estate in his van.

It's Only Money. Parallel parking the Jerry Lewis way. In Finland we call this "pocket parking".

It's Only Money. Hiding under the bed of Wanda Paxton (Joan O'Brien) Lester (Jerry Lewis) snores so loudly that he wakes up the millionaire heiress, and Wanda has to pretend that she is the one who is doing the snoring.

Rahaa kuin roskaa / Alla tiders lustigkurre
    US © 1962 York Pictures Corp. PC: Jerry Lewis Productions / York Pictures Corp. Distr: Para-mount Pictures. P: Paul Jones. D: Frank Tashlin. SC: John Fenton Murray. DP: W. Wallace Kelley – b&w – 1,85:1. AD: Tambi Larsen, Hal Pereira. Set dec: Sam Comer, James W. Payne. Process photography: Farciot Edouart. Special photographic effects: John P. Fulton. Cost: Edith Head. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Hair: Nellie Manley. M: Walter Scharf. Song: ”Isn’t It Romantic” (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) sung by Mae Questel. Choreography: Bobby Van. S: Charles Grenzbach, Gene Merritt – mono (Westrex Recording System). ED: Arthur P. Schmidt.
    C: Jerry Lewis (Lester March), Joan O’Brien (Wanda Paxton), Zachary Scott (Gregory DeWitt), Jack Weston (Leopold), Jesse White (Pete Flint), Mae Questel (Cecilia Albright), Pat Dahl (sexy girl), Barbara Pepper (fisherwoman), Francine York (sexy girl), Milton Frome (cop at pier), Del Moore (patrolman), Ted de Corsia (patrolman), Francesca Bellini (model on beach), Gary Lewis (Lester as a boy).
    Loc: Paramount Studios (5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood), Gulls Way Estate (26800 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu). Premiere: 21.11.1962.
    Helsinki premiere: 15.2.1963 Aloha, distr: Paramount Pictures – tv: 9.7.1998 MTV3 – VET 64434 – K8 – 2305 m / 84 min
    A vintage print with Swedish subtitles by Tore Metzer screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Jerry Lewis in memoriam), 17 April 2018

Frank Tashlin at his grimmest. It's Only Money is a thriller spoof about a crooked lawyer, Gregory DeWitt (Zachary Scott in his last film role) who has targeted a heiress, Cecilia Albright (Mae Questel*) whom he is about to marry. She is the daughter of an eccentric millionaire and television inventor whose giant bearded portrait dominates the hall of the family mansion. Gregory DeWitt and his accomplice, the butler Leopold (Jack Weston) are spinning their web for Cecilia.

But there is a case of a missing son, and when a television repairman, the orphan Lester March (Jerry Lewis), turns up, his voice and looks are instantly recognized. With the exception of the magnificent beard Lester is, in fact, a dead ringer for the deceased patriach.

Lester is both a walking disaster and an instinctive genius in electronics, and It's Only Money delivers generous helpings of sight gags and loony expressions.

There are also more serious sequences such as the one where the plump Cecilia is busy doing yoga exercises on her square-paneled marble floor in order to fit her bridal gown while her cold-blooded fiancé is examining her from above, preparing to murder her after the wedding.

Most of the comic thrills are about the two crooks' outlandish attempts to dispose of Lester. There is a time bomb hidden inside a television set in a yacht. The crooks even turn remote controlled lawn mowers into murder weapons.

W. Wallace Kelley, who shot most of Jerry Lewis's films in the 1960s, adopts here a thriller mood in the visuals, shooting in black and white.

An equally important regular collaborator for Lewis during the same period was the composer Walter Scharf whose work for Harold Lloyd's re-releases Lewis had admired. Scharf excelled in composing dramatic music with comic touches. In It's Only Money Scharf creates an effective thriller score.

The theme of the satire is announced in the title. We laugh at a life where money has turned from servant to master. It's Only Money is an original contribution to a great tradition dating back to Herodotus's account of Croesus, King of Lydia. It is one of the blackest comedies by Tashlin and Lewis.

A used print with signs of wear in the heads and tails of the reels. Beneath the patina the fundamental visual health is good.

* The casts of Jerry Lewis's movies are an impressive display of American show business heritage. Mae Questel debuted in the 1930s as the voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl, and she went on until Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

OUR PROGRAM NOTE FROM ANTERO HELASVUO:

The Patsy (1964)

The Patsy (1964). Singing lesson: Jerry Lewis (Stanley Belt) and Hans Conried (Prof. Mulerr). The ultrasonic yell of the Professor whose fingers have been stuck under the lid of the piano. From Ways of Seeing.

Jerry neropattina / Sprattelgubben
    US © 1964 Patti Enterprises. Distr: Paramount Pictures. P: Ernest D. Glucksman. D: Jerry Lewis. SC: Jerry Lewis, Bill Richmond. DP: W. Wallace Kelley – Technicolor – 1,85:1. AD: Cary Odell, Hal Pereira. Set dec: Sam Comer, Ray Moyer. Process photography: Farciot Edouart. Special photographic effects: Paul K. Lerpae. Cost: Edith Head. Makeup: Wally Westmore. Hair: Nellie Manley. M: David Raksin. Jack Brooks. Song: "I Lost My Heart in a Drive-In Movie" (David Raksin, Jack Brooks). S: Charles Grenzbach, Hugo Grenzbach – mono (Westrex Recording System). ED: John Woodcock. Casting: Edward R. Morse.
    C: Jerry Lewis (Stanley Belt), Ina Balin (Ellen Betz), Everett Sloane (Caryl Fergusson), Phil Harris (Chic Wymore), Keenan Wynn (Harry Silver), Peter Lorre (Morgan Heywood), John Carradine (Bruce Alden), Hans Conried (Prof. Mulerr).
    Cameos: George Raft, Hedda Hopper, Ed Sullivan, Ed Wynn, Mel Tormé, Rhonda Fleming, Scatman Crothers, Phil Foster, Billy Beck, Hans Conried, Richard Deacon, Del Moore, Neil Hamilton, Buddy Lester, Nancy Kulp, Norman Alden, Jack Albertson, Richard Bakalyan, Jerry Dunphy, Kathleen Freeman, Norman Leavitt, Eddie Ryder, Lloyd Thaxton, Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Fritz Feld.
    Shooting: 6.1.–28.2.1964 Paramount Studios (5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood). Premiere: 8.6.1964 (Los Angeles), 12.8.1964 (New York City).
    Helsinki premiere: 2.10.1964 Aloha, distr: Paramount Pictures – tv: 27.11.1971 MTV1, 29.11.1983 MTV2, 6.8.2006 and 24.12.2006 Yle Teema – dvd: 2005 Finnkino – VET 70052 – S – 2800 m / 101 min
    A vintage print with Swedish subtitles screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki (Jerry Lewis in memoriam), 12 April 2018

The Patsy, one of Jerry Lewis's greatest films, was his penultimate production for Paramount Pictures and already a kind of a farewell to the studio.

Martin and Lewis had started at Paramount in 1949 with My Friend Irma, and when Lewis debuted as a director in 1960 he became the last new genius director of the Hollywood studio system. Lewis's films were pronouncedly Paramount creations: artificial paradises, fantasies with affinities with the musical comedy idiom.

They were spectacular, glamorous, in Technicolor, and based on Paramount studio expertise in all departments: costumes, sets, visual effects, cinematography. Lewis respected studio veterans and was happy to engage Hollywood old-timers to the max in the cast. The Lewis paradox is that his films are late blossoms of the studio system yet modernist in ways comparable with Godard and Tati.

Many of Lewis's films, such as The Ladies' Man, are gag-driven, but The Patsy is plot-driven. A big star dies in a plane crash, and his brain trust decides to make a new star of a nobody – Jerry Lewis as bellboy Stanley.

The plot is about the manufacturing of a star, a variation and a parody of the Pygmalion narrative with Jerry as Galatea and American show business as Pygmalion. Tailoring, coiffure, singing lessons, step dance exercises, and classical dancing are among the episodes, all ripe with gag possibilities. With his brain trust, Stanley tries hard to learn jokes and comic routines. At each stage it becomes clearer that he is devoid of talent.

No better are his appearances at cocktail parties and public relations events. When he is told to be humble he crawls like a slave and licks a hand like a dog. When he is asked to relax he becomes totally limp. Unsure of what is wanted of him he becomes totally cramped. His awkward presence turns these events into such parodies of their inherent phoniness that they become entertaining to veterans such as Hedda Hopper.

When Stanley who is tone deaf, without musical talent and a singing voice is asked to lip-synch a rock'n'roll hit song written for him ("I Lost My Heart in a Drive-In Movie") he botches even that. As a performer Stanley is a walking disaster.

During these soulless proceedings only one person is interested in Stanley as a human being: Ellen Betz (Ina Balin), the secretary of the brain trust. In the middle of the noisy and trivial pop world there is a silent (dialogueless) flashback to Stanley's teenage days, his humiliating memories from a school dance when he first met Ellen. Ellen is given the most profound words of the film: "The sweet things and the good things aren't always the things that make us better people. I think the heartaches and unpleasant things, even the heavy burdens we've had placed upon us, make us stronger in the long run." The performances in this scene make it a privileged moment, a center of gravity.

The jokes written for Stanley play with the theme of identity ("I'd like to introduce myself... but I don't know me either"). The pathos, the fear of failure, and the nightmare of losing identity are treated in ways that border on horror and with an acute sense of the uncanny. There is an affinity with the world of Andy Kaufman as interpreted by Jim Carrey in Man on the Moon, directed by Milos Forman (who died 13 April 2018).

The narrative is obviously taking us towards a final catastrophe but the film-makers lack the courage of their convictions, and instead there is a fairy-tale happy ending (Stanley turns out to be an exceptionally talented star in the Ed Sullivan Show) and a meta-filmic "it's only a movie" ending (everything has happened on a studio stage). These endings water the film down.

The film is well cast. Jill St. John (Who's Minding the Store?) and Ina Balin belong to Jerry Lewis's most attractive female leads. It's not only that they are lovely to look at. They seem to be able to truly respond to Jerry and see through his clown masquerade. They are like Edna Purviance, Charles Chaplin's most durable partner in many of his best films: a center of sanity and a gifted comedienne radiating a more subtle sense of humour than Mr. Clown himself.

Jerry Lewis never imitated his models but there are affinities and connections to his favourite ones. The name Stanley is yet another hommage to Lewis's friend and mentor Stan Laurel. The awkward sequences with clothes (the tailor sequence, the school dance, and the tuxedo sketch) have echoes of Harold Lloyd's Fall Frolic sequence in The Freshman. And there is the fundamental affinity with Charles Chaplin, the cosmic solitude, the sense of rejection, and the sense of being an alien trying to accommodate into a strange world. (The ultimate Pygmalion narrative. And the story of every human being, born into this strange world as a baby.)

Bright Technicolor in a very good print in which only the beginning seems slightly duped and fading.

OUR PROGRAM NOTE FROM MARKKU TUULI: